Besides these iron mountains, all the hills of that district contain great quantities of ore. That whole tract of country is a vast bed of iron. The ore is, besides, remarkably pure. That from the "mountains" does not need to undergo any intermediate process, but may be wrought without being smelted into pigs. A pen-knife was recently made from the ore, with an exquisite polish and a fine edge. We need not speak of the immense value of such mines as these. We should remark, however, that they are perfectly accessible, and their treasures may be brought into the market at as small an expense as the nature of the commodity admits. They are situated only about forty miles from the Mississippi, and but seventy miles from St. Louis. An abundance of stone-coal has lately been discovered in their vicinity, and the whole district abounds with water power. It will not be many years before their wealth is poured into St. Louis, and thence throughout the whole land. They render it certain that Missouri must, at no very distant day, become one of the most important manufacturing states in the Union.

Except in the mineral districts, which are, in general, comparatively barren, the soil is uniformly good. It is, besides, very varied in its nature, so as to be adapted to a great variety of productions. The northern counties contain large tracts of excellent land, calculated for hemp and flax. Cotton is cultivated, although not to such advantage as in Mississippi and other southern States. Tobacco is raised in large quantities, and of the best quality. All the varieties of grain and grasses yield abundant crops. Garden vegetables grow to great perfection. Fruit trees, of all the kinds which belong to temperate climates, are successfully cultivated, and the fruit is at least equal to that in the eastern States. The timber includes almost all the valuable and ornamental varieties of the temperate zone. There are extensive pine forests on the Gasconade and Merrimac rivers. The facilities for raising stock are great, and farmers direct their attention very much to this branch of their business. There are many parts of the State, consisting of rocky points and broken sections of country, which seem peculiarly fitted for sheep-pastures, and hold out great inducements for the operations of wool-growers. In short, the agriculturist can hardly go amiss, to whatever he turns his attention. There is not, perhaps, so large a body of rich land as in some other States, but there is so favorable an alternation of prairie and hilly country, of meadow and woodland, that it is all rendered valuable.

The State is throughout well watered. Mill-sites and water-power are found almost wherever they are needed. The Missouri River passes through the richest agricultural portion of the State, and is navigable for steamboats twenty-five hundred miles from its mouth. It has almost innumerable tributaries, which, together with those of the Mississippi, irrigate every part of the State. The Osage river is one of the most considerable. It empties into the Missouri, ten miles below Jefferson City, and is navigable for moderate-sized boats for several hundred miles. The Gasconade is also a very important river, falling into the Missouri a hundred miles from its mouth, and passing through a very fertile and well-timbered country.

The climate of Missouri is, in general, pleasant and salubrious. Like that of all North. America, it is very changeable, and subject to extremes of heat and cold; but it is, we think, decidedly milder, if we take the whole year through, than that of the same latitudes east of the mountains. We are aware that, in this opinion, we differ from a greater part of the authorities upon the subject of climate in the United States; but we have had ample means of observation, and we are confident in the conclusion now expressed. We think, that, while the summers are not at all more oppressive than they are in the corresponding latitudes on and near the Atlantic coast, the winters are shorter, and, with the almost universal exception of a few weeks of severe weather in February, very much milder. We are sure that we have never witnessed, in any eastern city, a continuance of such beautiful weather, in the months of November, December, and January, as we have seen in the central parts of Missouri. The spring season, except the first half of March, is almost uniformly delightful.

In point of healthiness, this State will bear a favorable comparison with the other western States. It is not, of course, free from the diseases to which all newly settled countries are subject, such as "fever and ague," the disease which undermines many a strong constitution, and which, although not dangerous in itself, prepares the way for more fatal disorders. But, in most respects, the whole State may be considered healthy. The disease alluded to is generally confined to the borders of the rivers, and may be avoided by proper care.

The waters of the Missouri, and of most of its tributaries, in consequence of the nature of the soil that they flow through, are very wholesome, in which respect they are much superior to the Upper Mississippi, the Illinois, and, we think, the Ohio. The Missouri is singularly turbid; so much so, that it gives the same character to the whole Lower Mississippi; and new-comers are unwilling to drink its waters; but they soon learn to think it the pleasantest and most refreshing beverage, and to prefer it, when settled, to the clearest spring water. Chemists who have analyzed it declare, that it is entirely free from all hurtful admixtures, which can by no means be said of the water of most of the Western rivers. This circumstance, of course, exerts a highly favorable influence on the health of the State. Very exaggerated reports have gone abroad, of the prevalence and fatality of the bilious fever. It is certainly the inost fatal disease of the region, but moderate caution and foresight are sufficient to guard against it, and it never assumes an epidemic character. The freedom from consumption and its train of kindred disorders, of which there are hardly any cases in Missouri, is more than a set-off to all diseases which are peculiar to that section of the country.

WESTERN SCENERY.

The traveler who visits the Mississippi Valley for the first time, advancing from the east to the Ohio river, and thence proceeding westward, is struck with the magnificence of the vegetation which clothes

the whole surface. The vast extent and gloomy grandeur of the forest, the gigantic size and venerable antiquity of the trees, the rankness of the weeds, the luxuriance and variety of the underbrush, the long vines that climb to the tops of the tallest branches, the parasites that hang in clusters from the boughs, the brilliancy of the foliage, and the exuberance of the fruit, all show a land teeming with vegetable life. The forest is seen in its majesty; the pomp and pride of the wilderness is here. Here is nature unspoiled, and silence undisturbed. A few years ago this impression was more striking than at present; for now, farms, vil lages, and even a few large towns, are scattered over this region, diversifying its landscapes, and breaking in upon the characteristic wildness of its scenery. Still there are wide tracts remaining in a state of nature, and displaying all the savage luxuriance which first attracted the pioneer; and upon a general survey, its features present at this day, to one accustomed only to thickly peopled countries, the same freshness of beauty, and the immensity, though rudeness of outline, which we have been accustomed to associate with the landscape of the West.

We know of nothing more splendid than a western forest. There is a grandeur in the immense size of the trees-a richness in the coloring of the foliage, superior to any thing that is known in corresponding latitudes a wilderness and an unbroken stillness that attest the absence of man-above all there is a vastness, a boundless extent, an uninterrupted continuity of shade, which prevents the attention from being distracted, and allows the mind to itself, and the imagination to realize the actual presence and true character of that which had burst upon it like a vivid dream. But when the traveler forsakes the Ohio, and advancing westward ascends to the level of that great plain which constitutes the surface of this region, he finds himself in an open champagne country—in a wilderness of meadows clad in grass, and destitute of trees. The transition is as sudden as complete. Behind him are the most gigantic productions of the forest-before him are the lowly, the verdant, the delicate inhabitants of the lawn; behind him are gloom and chill, before him are sunlight and graceful beauty. He has passed the rocky cliff, where the den of the rattlesnake is concealed, the marshes that send up fœted stems of desolating miasma, and the canebrake where the bear and panther lurk; and has reached the pasture where the deer is feeding, and the prairie flower displays its diversified hues. He has seen the wilderness in all its savage pomp and gloomy grandeur, arrayed in the terrors of barbarian state; but now beholds it in its festal garb, reposing in peace, and surrounded by light gayety and beauty.

This distinction is not imaginary; no one can pass from one part of this region to another, without observing the natural antithesis of which we are speaking; and that mind would be defective in its perceptions of the sublime and beautiful, which did not feel, as well as see, the effect of this singular contrast. There is in the appearance of one of our primitive forests a gloomy wildness, that throws a cast of solemnity over the feelings; a something in the wide-spread solitude which suggests to the traveler that he is far from the habitations of man—alone, in the compan ionship of his own thoughts, and the presence of his God. But the prairie

landscape awakens a different train of thought. Here light predominates instead of shade, and a variety of hue instead of a wearisome exuber ance and monotony of verdure; while the extent of the landscape allow the eye to roam abroad, and the imagination to expand, over an endless diversity of agreeable objects.

The remarkable contrast is equally striking in the contour of the surface in the difference between the broken and the level districts. If the traveler looks down from the western pinnacles of the Alleghany, he beholds a region beautifully diversified with hill and dale, and intersected with rapid streams. In western Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, he finds every variety of scenic beauty-the hill, the plain, the valley, the rocky cliff, the secluded dell, the clear fountain, and the rivulet dashing headlong over its bed of rock. The rivers have each their characteristic scenery. The Monongahela, winding through a mountainous country, overhung with precipices, and shaded by heavy forests, with a current sufficiently gentle to be easily navigable to steamboats, has its peculiar features, which are instantly lost when the trav eler has passed on the bosom of the Ohio. The winding course and picturesque scenery of the Ohio, between Pittsburgh and Wheeling, impress the beholders as strictly wild and beautiful; below the latter place, the features of the landscape become softened, the hills recede fartber from the river, are lofty, and more rounded; and again, after passing Louisville, these elevations are seen less frequently, and gradually melt away, until the river becomes margined by low shores, and one continuous line of unbroken forest. But if we leave the gentle current of the Ohio, and ascend the Kentucky or the Cumberland, we again find rapid streams, overhung with precipices, and a country abounding in the diversities of a wild and picturesque scenery. Here may be seen the rapid current foaming and eddying over beds of rock, and the tall peak towering above in solitary grandeur. Here the curious traveler may penetrate the gloom of the cavern, may clamber over precipices, or refresh himself from the crystal fountain bursting from the bosom of the rock. But he will find every hill clad with timber, every valley teeming with vegetation; even the crevices of the limestone parapets giving sustenance to trees and bushes.

The scenery presented on the western shore of the Ohio is altogether different. The mountain, the rock, the precipice, and limpid torrent, are seen nc more; and the traveler as he wanders successively over Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and the vast wilderness lying beyond, is astonished a the immensity of the great plain, the regularity of its surface, and the richness, the verdure, the beauty, of its wide-spread meadows.

It is, perhaps, not easy to account for the intense curiosity and surprise which have been universally excited by the existence of these plains; for they have been found in various parts of the world. The steppes of Asia, the pampas of South America, and the deserts of Africa, are alike destitute of timber. But they have existed from different causes; and while one has been found too arid and sterile to give birth to vegetation, and another snow-clad and inhospitable, others exist in temperate climates and exhibit the most amazing fertility of soil. These facts show

that there are various causes inimical to the growth of trees, and the forest is not necessarily the spontaneous product of the earth, and its natural covering, wherever its surface is left uncultivated by the hand of man. The vegetable kingdom embraces an infinite variety of plants, "from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth on the wall;' and the plan of nature, in which there is no miscalculation has provided that there shall be a necessary concatenation of circumstances—a proper adaptation of soil, climate, moisture-of natural and secondary causes, to produce and to protect each: just as she has assigned the wilderness to the Indian, the rich pasture to the grazing herd, and the Alps to the mountain goat.

We apprehend that the intense astonishment with which the American pioneers first beheld a prairie, and which we all feel in gazing over those singularly beautiful plains, is the result of association. The adventurers who preceded us, from the champagne districts of France, have left no record of any such surprise; on the contrary, they discovered in these flowery meadows something that reminded them of home; and their sprightly imaginations at once suggested that nothing was wanting but the vineyard, the peasant's cottage, and the stately chateau, to render the resemblance complete. But our immediate ancestors came from lands covered with wood, and in their minds the idea of a wilderness was indissolubly connected with that of a forest. They had settled in the woods upon the shores of the Atlantic, and there their ideas of a new country had been formed. As they proceeded to the west, they found the shadows of heavy foliage deepening upon their path, and the luxuriant forest becoming at every step more stately and intense, deepening the impression that as they receded from civilization, the woodland must continue to accumulate the gloom of its savage and silent grandeur around them—until suddenly the glories of the prairie burst upon their enraptured gaze, with its widely-extended landscape, its verdure, its flowers, its picturesque groves, and all its exquisite variety of mellow shade and sunny light.

Had our English ancestors, on the other hand, first settled upon the plains of Missouri and Illinois, and the tide of emigration were now setting toward the forests of Ohio and Kentucky, climbing the rocky barriers of the Alleghany ridge, and pouring itself down upon the wooded shores of the Atlantic, the question would not be asked how the western plains became denuded of timber, but by what miracle of Providence a vast region had been clothed, with so much regularity, with the most splendid and gigantic productions of nature, and preserved through whole centuries from the devastations of the frost and the fire, the hurricane and the flood. We have all remarked how simple and how rapid is the process of rearing the annual flower, or the more hardy varieties of grass, and with what ease a spot of ground may be covered with a carpet of verdure; and we know equally well how difficult it is to rear an orchard or a grove, and how numerous are the accidents which assail a tree. An expanse of natural meadow is not, therefore, so much an object of curiosity as a continuous forest; the former coming rapidly to perfection, with but few enemies to assail it, the latter advancing slowly